


a question of lodging

by smithens



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Gen, Sharing a Bed, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 08:18:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7927462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/smithens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Forced to spend the night together in an opportune but frugal inn, Bahorel and Combeferre face an unexpected morning after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a question of lodging

**Author's Note:**

> for a Tumblr prompt: Combeferre & Bahorel, sharing a bed. (It's a bit too long to go into a ficlet collection.)

A mishap with a postmaster had resulted in their abandonment in Tours for the night, and though they had found a coachman for the next morning in short time, the question of lodging turned out to be - briefly - a greater concern than either Combeferre or Bahorel himself had considered.

In a lucky coincidence and unexpected bout of great fortune, that conundrum did not last long: he had run into an old and dear classmate, one who had graduated after only three years of freedom in Paris and was since estranged, and the classmate, most conveniently, had a younger brother who was secretly courting the daughter of an innkeeper - the daughter, being anxious to maintain good relations with her lover’s few sympathetic family relations, obliged herself to provide a favor, and so it was that Bahorel managed to get a single little room with a single mediocre bed in an inn on their way for a bargain of a fee, paid in advance.

It would have been more miraculous if he were travelling alone, because the bed was very obviously not meant to support two grown men.

Particularly not a combination of one who had a habit of kicking and one who spoke incessantly in his sleep (for which Bahorel took full responsibility - the complaint had been lodged before).

‘Restless’ did not cover the half of it, but a favor was a favor, and it was better - according to Combeferre - than a night spent in the vicinity of a desecrated basilica and cemetery.

Bahorel couldn’t hold a grudge for it, of course - if Combeferre had not within the last year spent a night with Prouvaire in a more local cemetery, he would have been more susceptible to persuasion.

As they were dressing, just at dawn, to continue their journey back to Paris, he told him so.

Combeferre paused halfway through pulling on a stocking to ruminate on this.

“If I had not been persuaded then,” he said, holding his hands to his shin and balancing precariously on the edge of the very stiff mattress, “I hope that I might have learned reason in another place by now, instead.”

He looked very sternly at his toes as he spoke, his lips pressing into a line at his conclusion, but Bahorel knew him well enough to see that he was fighting a smile.

“And I hope that you wouldn’t have,” Bahorel told him frankly, “if your reason turns up its nose at asking spectres for a place to sleep.”

Then, having found his respectable waistcoat in the depths of his valise, and a cravat to counteract it, he moved a pace away from the bed to finish dressing at the ornate - but dusty - looking glass.

For a moment, Combeferre did not speak. The birds outside of the window sang with more gusto to compensate.

Then: “If you must know, I was concerned more with the police.”

Bahorel turned on his heels, nearly forgetting that he had not yet tightened the knot of his cravat. It loosened further; the act destroyed his handiwork. “So you believe me about the ghosts, eh?!”

“Now, I did not say that,” replied Combeferre - and this time, he most certainly was smiling.

He was also decidedly slow to dress. It was yet another thing to wonder about, regarding Combeferre. Did he take such extensive time to put a shirt on when he was not travelling? If so, how did he manage to find time for the great variety of activities in which he partook?

Finishing with his necktie - passable, for a day they’d spend in a carriage - and thus his ensemble, Bahorel took Combeferre’s drab trousers from the bed and gently threw them at him.

“Perhaps they will help you keep your legs still in the coach,” he said. “Hurry up.”

“…I am truly sorry, you know. I’d have warned you, had I cognizance of the habit.”

Combeferre showed his remorse by picking up his pace as Bahorel gathered up the rest of their things - a single kerchief, two important letters, and a tinderbox had all found themselves in the gap between the floor and the bedside table. For a single night, there was perhaps too much clutter to be justified.

Of course, even as casualties resulted from untidiness, it was probably to be expected from each of them in the same room for so long. (In the dark, the room had seemed quite small, and Bahorel had tripped at one point in the night as he got of bed to fiddle with the drafty window.) As it was, tidying was just another thing to do in the morning - if they were lucky, they would be able to eat prior to continuing their journey.

The way that Bahorel himself considered it, this ought to have been motivation enough for Combeferre to get on with it.

After all, their sole remaining form of transportation would depart, according to its coachman, ‘at a time before eight’ - which potentially meant they had already dallied too long to make it.

(Spending a week with his mother had ruined every notion of timeliness he had developed in Paris. Namely, it had ruined the notion that to be tardy was of no consequence, while somehow imparting unto Combeferre the opposite idea - but Bahorel was not so far gone as to despair that he had lost his nonchalance forever.)

“Anyhow, Bahorel,” Combeferre said, as he stood to take his coat, for now that he was, miraculously, wearing his trousers, a waistcoat, and a very plain stock, he was decent enough for one, “to fight you in your sleep was never my intention.”

After putting on his shoes, Combeferre took their valises - as well as Bahorel’s own coat, which he had been sitting on, in his arms, and met Bahorel at the doorway.

The sun was high enough in the sky to flood the whole room with light; with the window now closed, the noises from the outside were no longer audible. In an exaggerated show of courtesy, Bahorel held open the door, bowed, and allowed Combeferre ahead of him, but took his chance to say into his ear, “did you think that I couldn’t take you, even sleeping?”

“To wage a war with an unsuspecting army does not appeal to me, Bahorel, but if you must know, I have never entertained the idea.”

“You with your strategy!” Bahorel replied, as he followed Combeferre into the narrow, lampless hall, “it would be unfair for me to strike back, anyhow. Clearly you are not so quick on your feet when drowsy.”

“On your part, you are no less noisy when asleep as awake,” said Combeferre, turning to show his wry smile.

“Touché, my good friend, but you are less wounded by my mumbling than I by your knees.”

At that Combeferre chuckled, but said nothing. They kept on down the hall and the stairs in silence until they reached the lower floor, where they found that they had what amounted to very little time before they were meant to continue their journey, and no time at all to eat any more than bread and cheese - luckily they were able to bid farewell to the innkeeper and his daughter in short time, and by the time they were seated in the travelling coach, they had each had some kind of early breakfast.

In mere days, they would return to Paris, where they would share with their friends a wealth of seditious knowledge acquired on their journey, and, contrarily but more comfortably, where they would have no more need of sharing beds.


End file.
